


This Is How It Goes

by quiznakeries



Series: SHEITH Summer Fics 2018 [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Getting Together, Lance is mentioned - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-06-29
Packaged: 2019-05-30 15:09:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15099347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiznakeries/pseuds/quiznakeries
Summary: The arm he slings around the girl’s waist as Shiro approaches is not for comfort, is not to reassure or to protect her.It’s ugly, but it’s all for show.





	This Is How It Goes

**Author's Note:**

> finally contributing to this fandom after months of lurking around and flailing over vld by myself, ‘zup
> 
> i'm not scared at all
> 
> anyway
> 
> to get myself back up and running in the fic-department I did a writing challenge with a friend on the theme “summer” and four keywords. here's the first one!
> 
> keyword: BONFIRE  
> (song rec: true disaster by tove lo)

Keith watches the flickering colors of the crackling fire reflect on the shiny, straight hair that’s blocking most of his vision. The long locks belong to a girl, tapping her foot to the rhythm of the melody she’s playing on her harmonica. Her body sways with it where she sits on his lap, just barely containing her urge to get up and dance around the fire to the sound of her song.

She’s a pretty thing. Tall and slim, with soft facial features and large, dark eyes.

He’s not sure how she ended up sitting on his thighs, or how long it’s been, but he figures he can’t complain.

Figures she’ll do as well as anyone.

It’s not a natural urge that drives him to reach up, to tuck a strand of dark hair behind her ear and draw her attention. It’s not that he can’t help himself, or even that he wants to.

This is just how it goes.

When she finishes her tune, a few clap their hands. Keith could bet money on that the wolf whistle he hears from the other side of the raging bonfire is Lance, but he doesn’t care to confirm. Not now, when the girl – whatever her name might be – twists her body to face him.

Her smile is nice, wide and tilted to one side.

He smiles back at her, because this is how it goes.

“You’re really good.” He says, hands splaying out and resting on slender hips. She feels small under his palms, and it’s not ideal. But it’ll do.

“Thank you.” She sticks the harmonica under the thin strip of yellow keeping her bikini top together, right between her breasts.

She’s not very subtle.

Which is a good thing.

“Do you play?”

Keith shakes his head. “I play a little guitar.”

“That’s cool.”

He hums, steadying her as she makes to straddle him properly on the makeshift chair someone built from old pallets and Ikea blankets. Her skin is warm and soft, and had things been different he might have found it more pleasant.

Still, an itch for more starts creeping into his bones.

Question is if it’s more thanks to the feel of her pressing against him, the tip of her nose brushing his cheek and her lithe fingers tangling in his hair before she kisses him; or to the weight of the observing eyes coming down on them.

Keith knew he’d notice, that he’d watch.

He would have done the same thing, had the tables been turned.

But here they are, and Keith isn’t sure if he’s playing games or just trying to live up to what’s been said. If he’s trying to cause trouble or if he’s just coping.

The line is blurred, and he doesn’t want to be the one to fix it.

Because this is what they said they’d do now. This, digging his fingertips into tanned thighs with too much give and too little strength is what he’s expected to be doing.

And it’s actually nice.

It’s not what he wants. But it’s nice.

 

Just like with the dance tugging on her limbs moments ago, there’s an urgency in the way the nameless girl moves on his body. No time passes before she’s sliding off his legs, hands pulling at Keith’s arms to make him stand and come along.

He flashes a grin because it seems to fit the scene, and wills himself not to look over at the figure staring holes into his back as he follows the bouncing feet dragging him away.

Leaving the towering flames behind, Keith realizes how chilly the night has gotten. How dark.

His company hums a melody, serene and slow like the little waves hitting the shore below. But her pace is quick, bare feet skipping through the sand.

She’s eager, and it makes him just a bit more eager too.

 

They’re halfway up the paved beach walk up to the parking lot, away from the ocean and probably towards the stuffy backseat of a car when his name carries through the dark.

It strikes like lightening, rooting him in place.

He shakes it loose.

The girl turns to look for the source, to find that voice. Keith just scoffs, pushes her forward with he hopes are gentle hands.

“Keith!”

He shakes his head, something scorching and angry flaring in his chest now. But he stops his feet. It’s no use, and he knows that.

The arm he slings around the girl’s waist as the newcomer approaches is not for comfort, is not to reassure or to protect her.

It’s ugly, but it’s all for show.

The line is becoming clearer and now he’s playing games of spite.

He’d know the silhouette approaching at any distance, in any light. Tall and broad with a neck as thick as Keith’s own thigh. Big and strong and climbable and always, always burning to the touch.

For a split second, something rejoices in Keith because Shiro came after him. But he kicks it hard, stomps it dead.

“Can I help you?”

Keith hopes his voice sounds as agitated as he feels. Knows that the other man will hear the question he’s really asking.

_What the fuck do you think you’re doing?_

 

Shiro doesn’t halt at a distance, doesn’t approach carefully but gets right up in Keith’s space and wraps one large and heavy hand over his bicep. And it ticks Keith off even more because he hates how the touch makes his stomach twist in the best way.

“We need to talk.”

“We really don’t.”

“ _Keith_.”

Keith jerks away, away from Shiro and away from the girl without a name.

She must be confused. Keith doesn’t really care. Whatever was about to go down, he doesn’t want it anymore.

It was never about her, anyway.

“There’s nothing for us to talk about.”

He’s losing his cool all too quickly, anger in his bloodstream and something hard sitting on his lungs.

“I can do whatever the hell I want. You made that perfectly clear.”

Shiro squares his shoulders, his features hardening and Keith knows it’s only him that makes Shiro lose his temper like this.

It’s empowering, really. Breaking a kind man.

Shiro doesn’t hold their stare for more than a moment, but turns his head to a silent girl tapping nervous nails on the metal casing of the instrument tucked in her cleavage.

“You can go.” He tells her, and she doesn’t hesitate to hurry past the two men, quickly disappearing down the moonlit path.

When she’s gone, a bark of mirthless laughter punches its way out of Keith’s mouth.

“I can’t fucking believe you.” He says.

Shiro on the other hand, says nothing.

But he wanted to talk, so by god, Keith is going to talk.

“What the hell was that?” he gestures down the walkway. “You have no right. None what so fucking ever.”

Keith can see it, the pent-up frustration and the angry words tearing up the other mans’ surface from underneath. Can sense more than actually see how his fists clamp down on themselves, how every muscle pulls tight.

And now, Keith just wants to see him snap.

“It’s your own damn fault isn’t it? This shit was all your idea.”

Perhaps Shiro is counting in his head, steadying his breath because he doesn’t like to fight like this.

Keith scoffs.

“I should see other people, you said.” He takes a step closer to Shiro, wants to see up close as the older man gets taken down by his own words. “I shouldn’t get tied up so young, you said.”

It’d hurt like shit, that one-sided conversation at the end of the semester. Curled up and naked on a bed that wasn’t his, Keith had listened to the man who seemed to burn away his nightmares tell him how what he thought they were was not that at all.

Saying those things out loud, bringing life back to them, feels like dragging slivers of glass up his throat.

But it’s worth it, if just to see the steel in Shiro’s eyes bend and crack down the middle.

“So now,” he continues, backing up slowly and forcing a vicious little blade of a smile to his mouth. “I fuck whoever the hell I want.”

Shiro’s armor crumbles like an empty beer-can under his heel, and for a second Keith feels triumphant.

But then he’s going. His legs carry him up the hill and he can’t go fast enough, can’t get away fast enough. In his chest, his heart beats so hard and loud it drowns out next to all sound. All except the faint sound of his name being yelled, coming in again and again.

So caught up in causing chaos under Shiro’s skin, he didn’t see his own ragdoll exterior tear at the seams. Didn’t pay attention to the knife in his hands that had two blades, slicing into him with every stab at Shiro.

Hot tears blur his vision when he sprints up the stairs to the parking lot, where his beat-up mountain bike rests against the railing.

For once, he’s thankful to his own recklessness and his bad habit of never locking it. Glad that he can grab it by the frame and sling his leg over it and _go_.

 

The city has yet to go to sleep, late night dog walkers and partygoers all the same under the warm sheen of streetlight. Taxi cabs and teenagers hurrying across the street, they all sweep by in a blur. Keith’s hair wisps around his face, a sweat starts to cling to the back of his shirt. Thump, thump, thump goes his heart, beating like a bassdrum in his ears and he can’t really breathe anymore but who the hell cares now.

He darts down the streets of the city like a burglar on the run, streetlights and traffic rules not so important when he needs to get away. Away from Shiro and the false cloak of safety his presence drapes over Keith’s beaten and bruised excuse for a heart.

 

He’s not sure how much time passes under his tires, and not of where he’s been. All he knows is that eventually, the warm glow of the city was replaced by moonlight and a lonely road, taking him home. Black spots his vision, and he can’t feel his legs anymore when the single house at the end of a gravelly path comes into view. Can no longer hear his thoughts over the thump, thump, thump.

He’s almost there, can almost taste the sweet bliss of just passing out on the rug in the hallway; of slipping into darkness finally – when he sees the car pulled up in a space that should be empty.

He’d scream, in frustration and in anger, but he can’t. He’s just so tired, in every sense of the word. So utterly, thoroughly exhausted.

In the corner of his eye, Keith sees Shiro slide off the hood of his car. He doesn’t look at him. Perhaps if he pretends Shiro isn’t there, he won’t be.

Keith’s knees buckle when the bike falls in the gravel, and he knows there’s no way now. Not that it’ll stop him from trying. He scrambles, just barely keeps himself together well enough to get up the two short steps to the front door.

The brass handle is cool under his sweat-slick palm, and he’s so, so close.

But it’s as far as he gets, before a strong arm curls over his chest, pulls him back against Shiro’s body. And for the life of him, he can’t fight the urge to go pliant in the embrace he swears he doesn’t want. He’s just, so tired. And Shiro is so, so warm and strong, keeping him standing with ease.

There’s no anger in this touch, no tension or contained darkness in the body that holds him. There’s something else, something docile. Tender.

Keith is still struggling with his breath, chest heaving and his vision is swimming. In this state, he can’t ignore how good it feels, all of this. Shiro’s arms around him, Shiro’s steady breathing against his back, Shiro’s cheek pressed to his sweaty temple.

So he sinks into it, allows the man behind him to hold his weight as he goes limp against him.

He’s still panting, eyes fluttering closed and only of half a mind when Shiro finally speaks.

“Keith I’m sorry.” It’s hurried, stumbling and desperate even as a whisper, and Keith struggles to catch it. “I changed my mind I’m sorry Keith, please-“ A single, soft kiss to the top of his jaw. “I’m an idiot I’m so stupid I’m sorry I-“ And a second. “ _Keith_.”

Keith manages something like a snort, a tiny jerk of his head. He feels drowsy, and warm.

“You are an idiot.” He says, and even if he wanted his words to have some bite, he couldn’t forge it at this point. “You really fucking are.”

Shiro chuckles, and he holds him tighter.

 

 

There’s a blurred line somewhere that Keith has worried much about. But now, as Shiro maneuvers the both of them inside, when gentle hands strip him of his clothes and get him into bed, when he melts against the strong body clinging to him and he’s falling asleep just as a new morning sun starts climbing the sky – a wind curls the sands. And so a new, smooth layer covers the surface; open and unblemished, ready for the new beginning awaiting at the end of his sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> this is a mess don't judge me
> 
> twitter!


End file.
